Spark of Life

I drag myself awake,
Trying my best to ignore the screaming of my flesh and
The crying of my bones.
Rubbing a weary hand across my face,
I set about preparing for my day.

Disregarding the tears standing in my eyes,
I slowly dress and find a way to pull on my shoes.
Cracking the door to the trailer,
I turn dead eyes to the lush landscape outside the door.

Almost falling, I clamber down to the sandy soil,
And turn toward the wall of trees nearby.
Determined to find a way to absorb some of its energy,
I tread slowly into their sheltering midst.

Panting with the exertion of rarely used muscles,
I slowly climb the hill before me.
Breaking through the seldom traveled brush,
I start out across a picture perfect sunlit meadow.

I find I bring my broken-hearted darkness with me,
Dragging vapors of agony and illness behind.
Across the verdant spring flowers and young growing things,
I drag tendrils filled with the angry pallor of death and misery.

I grasp the rays of the summer sun,
And rub them into my skin like some sort of healing balm.
Stealing its life and warmth from its intended recipients,
All to satiate my bottomless need.

The smells of life gradually break through the walls of decay,
Searing their scents of goodness and energy across my
Darkness encrusted soul.
Remembrances of antiseptic solutions fade slowly,
Before this abrupt onslaught of growth and life.

As I slowly meander, I leave behind a trail of viscous death and rancid loss
Like a black highway etched down to the bedrock of the mountain.
A passage of lifelessness and death carved into the abundant energy around me;
A pathway of pallor amongst a sea of color and excitement.

I stand still, barely able to see in the blinding brightness,
Absorbing the raw living will that surrounds my outstretched arms.
Time stands still as a year’s worth of living
Is torn free and hoarded away in barely an hour’s measure of time.

I slowly raise my head and open my too dead eyes,
Finally able, at last, to feel the life alive around me…